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Denver Broncos dealing with reality of shocking end to their season

There was depiction of a little bit of sadness in the clean-shaven faces of Eric Decker and Dan Koppen.

The playoff beards are gone before they got a third week to fill in. For Decker, the time he spent shaving was greater than the time he slept overnight before he showed up at the Broncos' headquarters Sunday for a morning team meeting with coach John Fox, followed by the players' annual locker-clearing funeral.

"Didn't sleep last night," said the Broncos receiver, who had a team-high six catches for 84 yards in a stunning, 38-35, two-overtime playoff loss Saturday to the Baltimore Ravens. "I watched the game twice last night, trying to figure out what the hell happened."

The Denver Post's NFL reporters post analysis, notes and more on this blog focusing on the Denver Broncos.

There was a zombie-like state to the Broncos players Sunday as they packed up their belongings in trash bags, backpacks and gym bags. It wasn't so much that there was laughter or tears, or anger or relief, as much as there was of feeling nothing.

"The NFL playoffs are a strange animal," Broncos tight end Jacob Tamme said. "You go 100 miles an hour nonstop for so long and you never plan on it ending, and then it does. You really don't know what to do with yourself. So that's where I'm at right now."

The Broncos entered the postseason with 11 consecutive wins, among which was a recent whipping of the same Ravens team, and home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs as the No. 1 seed.

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And yet the Ravens are advancing to the AFC championship game Sunday at New England, while the Broncos are done. Some of them are finished until they reconvene for offseason conditioning about April 15, others for good.

"I don't know. We'll have to see if it's worth it," said defensive tackle Ty Warren, who missed his third consecutive NFL season because of an injury and never played a down for the Broncos in his two years here. "Things unraveled on me at the end. I don't want to elaborate on that too much. I'll let you talk to these guys."

Wide receiver Brandon Stokley was one of several Broncos veterans who signed up for one year in the hopes Denver returned to the Super Bowl. But in the loss against the underdog Ravens, the Broncos had multiple opportunities to go up by two scores, get some breathing room and eventually put the game away. They could never do it.

They were up 21-14 and driving inside Baltimore territory late in the first half. Yet, instead of going up 28-14, the Ravens got it back to 21-21 at the half. The Broncos led 28-21 in the third quarter and again were inside Baltimore territory when a holding penalty was followed by a strip-sack fumble that led to a 28-28 score.

And then came the final 41 seconds, when the Broncos were up 35-28 and the Ravens were on their own 30. Somehow, a high, deep pass launched by Joe Flacco first sailed past cornerback Tony Carter and then safety Rahim Moore before it landed in the arms of Ravens receiver Jacoby Jones for a game-tying touchdown.

"It's all those emotions: disappointment, sadness," Stokley said. "You keep playing the what-if game. It just boils down to we had so many opportunities in that game to separate ourselves. We just weren't able to do it. Everybody looks back at the last minute. And I look back at the last two minutes of the first half. Offensively. we couldn't put points on the board right there. And to me that's what really cost us."

The Broncos had gone three months without losing. They started by winning Game 6 with 35 unanswered points at San Diego to wipe out a 24-0 halftime deficit. They won their last 11 games by an average of 16 points.

Maybe it was too easy. Maybe they whipped the Ravens a little too easily four weeks earlier in Baltimore. As dominant and complete as the Broncos seemed to be, when the Ravens' Justin Tucker booted through a 47-yard field goal 1:42 into the second overtime, there was nothing left but the shaving.

"It stinks," Tamme said. "It stinks. Never had a thought we would lose that game until the ball went through the uprights. This is such a good group of guys. Guys went about it the right way. They were such a joy to play with. It stinks to have it end. But you've got to keep rolling."

Not all kids who play baseball are uniformed with fancy script across their chests, traveling to $1,000 instructional camps and drilled how to properly hit the cut-off man. Some kids just play to play.